5 QUESTIONS WITH
CREATIVES BEN CONNOR BY NICOLE WILLIS
LOCAL CHEF AND ARTIST, BEN CONNER, has turned his passion for shoes into an art form and a business. Ben established his company, Handcrafted by Ben Conner, to share his hand-carved wooden art pieces with the community. The Gulf Breeze native attended culinary school in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and went on to become sous-chef at Global Grill for fourteen years. He now works in the same position for Eurest at Navy Federal Credit Union. In addition to being a full-time chef, Ben also designs and sells his uniquely-carved wooden cutouts. You can find Ben’s one-off pieces at Garden Street Vintage in downtown Pensacola. To check out more of his work and for purchase inquiries, visit @handcraftedbybenconner on Instagram. What medium/type of art would The first piece of shoe art that you consider your work to be? I made actually came from a I would consider the style of art printable coloring page. I got to be intarsia, which is a form the shoe’s pattern from this of woodworking where you coloring page, modified the create a mosaic-like picture pattern to size and got to work! from wood, using no stain or dye, only the natural colors of Can you take me through your the wood. Because I do not use process and describe what a stain, paint, or dye, the natural goes into creating one of your color and grain pattern of the pieces? What types of wood wood are what make the art do you use and where do you piece. I select the woods I use source your wood? based on their natural charac- Wood art starts with, well, wood. teristics, as these characteris- I get a majority of the wood that tics help to create the image I use from Peeble’s Exotic Wood, that I have in mind. which is located just north of Cantonment. It is awesome How did you first get into having a selection of exotic designing this type of art, and lumber to choose from that’s was there something that so close and readily accessible. inspired you to start creating I mainly use hardwoods and these pieces? exotic woods because those I started creating my wood art woods have the desired color pieces in 2017. Many intar- and grain patterns necessary sia patterns depict animals to achieve a specific type of or nature and I wanted to put look for each of my projects. my own twist on it by trying to Once I have the wood, I start make an intarsia-style shoe. my projects by printing out 6 | DOWNTOWNCROWD.COM
the pattern of the design I am Tell me a little bit about the going to use. I then place the different types of pieces you pattern on the pieces of wood create. What are some of your that I have selected. Once the most popular designs? pattern is laid out on the wood, My most popular designs would I cut out every shape with a probably be the shoes—specifiscroll saw. After I get all the cally Air Jordan 1s, 3s, 4s and, pieces cut, I make sure they my personal favorite, Nike Dunks. all fit together. From there, I I mainly spend my time creatshape and round the pieces ing shoe pieces, however, these over to give each piece depth pieces are not the only pieces and that 3-D effect found in that I make. I have made several intarsia-style woodwork. Once small side tables where the table the pieces are shaped, I glue top is the Wu-Tang Clan “W” logo all of them together. Finally, I which is obviously made out of add a backer so that the work wood. I have also made several of art will be ready to hang up. tree of life pieces, bulldogs and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles piece for my son. Sometimes I’ll even just get creative and see if I can turn an idea from my head into a project.
What inspires you to turn an object into an art piece? My love for sneakers sparked the idea of turning my shoes into art pieces. Different shoe silhouettes and colorways inspire me. When I see a shoe design, I want to create pieces that resemble the actual shoe as much as possible. Ten years ago I would’ve never thought I would be making these pieces, but I love doing it. Keep an open mind and try new things, you never know where it will take you.
